


Ten Things That Went Wrong in the Seduction of Liam Angelico

by henriettaholden



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Angsty Schmoop, F/F, F/M, Implied gay bashing, Is how I first described it, M/M, Minor Spike/OC, Schmoop, Tagging this as I reread it, This is the most melodramatic thing I've ever written, gay slurs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-06-18
Updated: 2010-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-19 14:55:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10642188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henriettaholden/pseuds/henriettaholden
Summary: Spike, raging bisexual and town scandal, befriends and is befriended by the school quarterback. Spike must decide whether his friendship with Liam is worth destroying in an attempted seduction and Liam must overcome the boundaries of societal expectations.





	1. Part 1

The big guy was as straight as a door frame. But Spike was determined. The bulky Italian Mick—and wasn’t that a mix—was too gorgeous and too gentle for Spike not want him the moment Spike stepped into the American high school. Sticking out worse than a sore thumb with his leather, bleach and Brit accent, Spike also boasted the title of being the only openly bisexual student in the school. His arrival in the sleepy town of Sunnydale was the start of many scandalous happenstances connected to his name.

The first scandal, that had not only the school but the whole town talking, was his instant friendship with the star quarterback, Liam Angelico. 

On Spike’s first day in Sunnydale, he walked into the cafeteria and sought out the top dog he’d have to take down. There was Liam, smiling sunnily at a joke the other jocks had made at his expense. Not put out by the size of the footballers, Spike slouched his way over to their table and plopped down in the seat next to Liam. 

“So, which one of you isn’t a pansy and will play rugby without all the bulky gear?”

The jocks scoffed and began to appear affronted but Liam waved them down.

“Well not me. I don’t like to ruin my delicate complexion.” Liam answered with a cheeky grin, and prompting Spike’s burst of laughter. Their secretly exchanged smile started a journey towards a friendship for life. 

Spike hated the ‘friends’ part of that clause. But Spike couldn’t hate Liam for that. Because Liam was too perfect. 

If there ever was a living angel, it was Liam. His handsome, beautiful face and olive, toned skin didn’t portray a speck of his beauty. It was his heart that shone. His charity and his faithfulness and loyalty and if the guy did one more nice thing, Spike was going to jump him instantly. 

But it couldn’t go down like that. Spike had to be careful about showing his affection and every time Liam confessed his darkest past and deepest secrets, Spike felt guilt for his planned seduction. Spike knew that his want for Liam was betraying the confidence Liam bestowed upon Spike. 

In the nights where Liam would want to disappear from his parent’s suburban dream, and Spike would long for the foggy cold London air, they would end up parking in a field, not far out from Sunnydale. In the summer, Spike would forever complain about Liam’s Plymouth seats sticking to his jeans. He would fiddle with the heater dial in the winter time. 

Spike looked over at Liam, one such night. The Plymouth had died so they were stuck inside Spike’s DeSoto with no air conditioning.

“I almost killed two girls.” Liam whispered. 

Liam had been mostly silent on the way out to their spot. Spike knew it was the night Liam would really open up. They’d been going out to the farm for a couple of months and they’d traded quietly spoken secrets about their family. They placed trust in each other to never let their arguments interfere with the peace they found together in the field.They gave each other silence when the world had been too noisy. 

But underneath all that, the dark past that had hung above the other’s head had been silently bidding its time. They knew they had someone to confess and relate the horrors they had partaken. And that night Liam softly spoke those stricken words, Spike had known. 

“They were caught in a fire I accidentally set.” 

That was the night they truly knew each other.

So that was the first thing that went wrong with the seduction Spike had planned. He fell in love with Liam.


	2. Part 2

Spike ached.

Inside his rib cage, the muscle that did half of his thinking wanted to escape to the sleeve of Spike’s black, torn tee.

Because if he wore it on his sleeve, maybe Liam would take pity and snog him.

Liam would look over at him during lunch breaks, catching Spike’s devouring stare that rarely left Liam’s body. It was those times that Spike was sure Liam knew. The little smile he’d send Spike’s way when he caught him mid-stare and the caring way Liam would grasp Spike’s shoulder as they parted made Spike certain Liam felt sorry for his little crush.

Liam being Liam, generous and overly nice and perfect. As usual.

“Hey, wanna go over to The Sun and watch a movie? You can complain about English tabloids and bad CGI.”

Spike tried to work the seductive moves, be the sex-in-black-jeans facade he’d portrayed for the better half of the last five years. But the insecure Mamma’s boy he’d hated so returned to his sentiments and he’d flail inertly in the presence of Liam.

“Ah sure, mate. Yeah. Great. Sure.” Disintegration of verbal communication was inherent in the silent flailing moments.

The movie theatre smelt like stale popcorn and musty upholstery, their supersized Cokes doing little to remove the bitter smells with the acrid, sugary taste.

Spike tried the yawning-and-stretching-arm manoeuvre but Liam wrecked the ploy by spilling the popcorn all over Spike’s lap. And attempting to clean it up.

The buttery kernels that stuck to Spike’s jeans were slowly brushed from the denim, falling to the floor in the flickering light of the film. The wrestling of foil papers as the audience demanded their sugar sacrifices dulled in Spike’s ears as he watched those calloused, heavy fingers follow the stitching in the denim with each wave of falling popcorn. Every now and then, Liam unconsciously drew his fingers into his mouth, sucking away the melted fat before popping the tip of his fingers out of those delicious lips.

Spike almost popped like corn in a pan when a fingernail hesitated above the band of his low slung jeans.

“So I was thinking about what to get your Mom for her birthday.”

Spike sighed beneath his breath. His proof of attraction had immediately diminished with Liam’s use of the M word but the swelling of his heart couldn’t be dulled with Liam’s sweet, concerned confession.

Spike had only just told him of his mother’s cancer the previous night in the field.

Despite desperate sexual attraction that Liam didn’t seem to notice, Spike was sure his yearning could be felt by Liam in each innocent caress.

But Liam never said anything and suddenly their friendship was as solid as Liam’s biceps Spike longed to touch.

He found out about Liam’s exes. The first died of a terminal infection of Chlamydia. Liam stayed with her until her death. Second was slated to be a nun before suddenly becoming reliant on Liam’s support; third was from a broken family who was headed towards being institutionalised. He didn’t pick the easy girls, that was for sure.

So the second downfall was when Spike started sleeping with Veronica.

He couldn’t stand the ache one more second. The brush of fingers when they both grabbed for a fry or their playful nudging throughout the school corridors was so painful, Spike sought out something to make it go away.

His chumminess with Liam had turned into torture; he desperately needed to relieve his loins.

So he turned back to the fairer sex.

Veronica had jet black hair. Joan Jett crazy hair sprayed to stay in shape and a high shriek that’d sound when Spike pressed against her clit.

She would have driven a motorbike if her parents didn’t ban her from driving any kind of vehicle. Something about depth perception and a rebellion against corrective lenses.

Spike didn’t have a spare minute that wasn’t consumed by Veronica. Their first date consisted of meeting at the Fish Bowl in the warehouse district. Spike saved her from a drunken lout getting too touchy feely and she saved him from death by paroxysm.

Spike suddenly lost all false pretences and, overnight, became Veronica’s fierce protector. He’d walk her to her classes and snog her behind the gym. She’d yell at him for being stuck in the past in the middle of the cafeteria. He’d drag her past Liam and into the men’s bathroom, turned on by her passionate anger.

Veronica suddenly became Spike’s world and Liam was left in the lurch. Empty minutes that were once filled with Spike’s laughter and bickering joviality were bare. The field was oppressively silent.

Spike was lip syncing with Veronica in the back seat of his DeSoto in the parking lot during the last game of the season. The big game. The game where Liam orchestrated the perfect winning score and the last touchdown that won the game in the last seconds.

The high was incredible. Liam was speaking to the scouts from Maryland U while Spike’s orgasm announced itself all over Veronica’s hand.

“Ronnie? You okay?” 

She licked her fingers and wound down the window. The roar of the home town crowd echoed out of the stadium. She smiled up at Spike above her.

Liam was listening to an expression of the possibility of a full scholarship. He looked around, knowing Spike had come to the game. But Spike was positioning himself back into his jeans. Spike tucked the wrong coloured hair behind his lover’s ear. He knew it was wrong, using Veronica. But Liam was untouchable.

That was, until Spike was pulling Liam out of a car wreck in the middle of Main Street.


	3. Part 3

Sometimes, the night knew. Without anyone whispering it to the winds, the night would fortify against the horrible happenstances. The air would go still, too still, and the people would stay hidden from the moonlight, hushed in their homes. The smoky tendrils would rise from the engine and the heavens would begin their rumbling.

The heavy tires pounded the tar as the DeSoto bumped along the main road through the town centre. Veronica’s hand was placidly in Spike’s lap, gently squeezing his thigh. She was almost in love with him.

Spike sighed, releasing the breath of anxiety that curled in his chest. He couldn’t stop thinking about Liam. He knew it was the big game that evening and he needed to know how Liam fared with the college scouts. But Veronica had asked him to stay the night, and he could never turn her down.

Her hand brushed a mussed curl away from his forehead and for a split second he took his eyes off the road to smile at her. She was so beautiful, and he couldn’t bear to see her hurt. He couldn’t ever hurt her. So he smiled the smile he secretly knew was Liam’s.

The squeal of tyres skidding across the road broke the reverie of Veronica’s eyes.

The pair of outcasts looked away from one another to see a very familiar Plymouth was totalled in front of their eyes, wheels spinning crazily in the air.

“Oh God,” Spike breathed as if the words would inspire Liam’s car to return to its proper position. 

The DeSoto halted to an abrupt stop outside of Espresso Pump. The big black box blocked all traffic as it stopped diagonally across Main Street, looking like a fierce panther protectively prowling towards its upturned mate.

The dark Plymouth was alight with sparks. Spike ripped open his door and sprinted towards Liam, calling his name in glorious anguish. The flames began to lick the sky as Veronica looked on.

Spike had never run so fast.

The piece of her heart that Spike had held broke away from her body and Veronica handed over the part of Spike’s heart she held in waiting for Liam. The emergency line operator was taking too long to pick up.

The quarterback was hefted up onto Spike’s slim back, the body coughing like the destroyed engine. By the time the police got to the scene, the ambulance was en route to the hospital, carrying a stricken Spike and unconscious Liam.

The Plymouth exploded unto the night.

****

The chair was hard beneath his ass. Every time he shifted to try and wrangle an inch of comfort from the plastic he remembered where he was. He hated hospitals.

Veronica wasn’t touching him. She sat there, waiting for her parents to pick her up and watching Spike.

He huffed and went to stand.

Veronica slipped her hand inside the pale clenching fist. He stopped pacing at her bequest but his nostril flares hadn’t abated.

“Spike!” Her harsh whisper whipped Spike’s way when he sent a fierce glance towards an uninformative nurse.

Stone silence sat between their motionless bodies, unknowingly surrounded by the indistinguishable babble of the hospital.

When the hospital staff had been less than forthcoming for over an hour about Liam’s surgery, Veronica took Spike’s chin in her palm.

“I need to talk to you.”

Her fingernails tickled his Adam’s apple as her voice bathed his face.

“You belong with him.”

Spike made a noise that was partway disagreement and partially denial, but Veronica shushed him with a soft kiss.

“I was lucky,” her voice continued to wash away the anxiety of her words. “I was lucky to have a smidgen of your heart for any length of time. But I know your heart doesn’t lie with me, William. It’s in that surgery, right now. And when I walk away, it will be alright. Because he’ll have it all.”

Tears dripped down his face as he watched her walk through the automatic doors. A nurse tapped him on his shoulder. The Angelico’s were being debriefed by a doctor in scrubs.

Liam was going to be okay.

****

The hospital stay saw Spike by Liam’s side as often as Liam’s mother vacated the chair.

Kathleen handed Spike the Styrofoam cup of slush, better known as hospital coffee. Spike knew his abrupt clothing had shocked her at first, but as soon as Kathleen learned he’d saved her son, Spike was welcomed with open arms. It was the normal shift change, when Spike exchanged the armchair for pissweak caffeine and a soft smile. It was in the moments he’d spy Kathleen softly singing to her son when Spike first learned of Liam’s pet name, Angel.

Spike had the day shift, but Mrs Angelico didn’t know that. He’d been skipping classes to sit by Liam’s slowly recovering form. His teachers hadn’t noticed his absence. His parents didn’t know of his insomnia.

When Liam first woke from his induced sleep post-surgery, Spike had been the only one in the room. As soon as the droopy eyelids fluttered open, Spike climbed into the dazed brown eyes. It was as if he walked a tightrope across a scene of grief, his heartbreak the only thing keeping him balanced. He teetered as Liam tried to smile.

“Liam,” he whispered and a smile broke across the paled lips. Their connection was palpable, the rope strung tight between their souls.

The throat surrounding the plastic tube helping him breath constricted as if to talk.

But Liam’s big brown eyes said it all.

I miss you, Spike.

The sound of Spike choking on his tears brought the nurses into the room.

Following the two days of sleep, Liam slept further hours away. His conscious moments were few and far between. But every time he awoke to see Spike beside him, his lips would curve into delight. The smile he’d bestow upon Spike was dearly savoured. His Angel smiled like Spike deserved it. Deserved to be gifted the beautiful sight of lips reaching up towards tired eyes.

But Spike would never deserve that touching smile. It was a smile given to the best of friends. But best friends went to big games and sat in the passenger seat of cars going to after parties. Best friends didn’t find a fill-in girlfriend in order to stop fantasising about footballer’s uniforms.

When Liam was finally able to talk again, he brokenly whispered to Spike about his football success; he gushed quietly about the new art teacher; he sobbed about his father’s infidelity. Spike slowly died inside as Liam confessed everything Spike had missed from Liam’s life.

Spike would only deserve that smile if he’d been with his best friend when he’d needed him.


	4. Part 4

In all the time he sat before his wanted, Spike only took one liberty.

He’d held Liam’s hand.

Liam was watching the tousle-haired head rest against his thigh as the afternoon light trickled through the blinds. The soft snores tickled his kneecap.

Spike’s exhausted eyes had been rimmed in red when he first walked into the room. Spike wouldn’t say, but Liam knew his condition was the cause of Spike’s sleepless nights. The dark clouds only disappeared from his eyes when his hand clasped Liam’s.

When Spike napped in that plaid armchair, Liam would cry for Spike. He’d cry for the best friend who’d left him without his only avenue of support. He’d whisper the betrayal he’d felt when the first man he’d cared about had disappeared from his life. He’d run his hand above Spike’s hand, remembering the solidarity of their fingers just touching as they rested their hands adjacent on the leather upholstery. When Liam slept, he could hear the empty field moan for Spike’s return.

Spike examined every line etched into Liam’s big hands. They were describing a timeless teen tale of leather skin footballs and summer labour jobs. Spike drew his spare hand, not entangled with Liam’s fingers, along his beloved’s thickly-haired forearm. The little dark strands were soft beneath Spike’s fingertips. Man arms on an over grown boy. The strong, quarter back shoulders were marred by the cream bandages holding his heart inside.

The brown-eyed angel choked in his sleep, his fingers clenching Spike’s as the nightmare passed.

Such an angel wasn’t deserving of the terrors that haunted his repose. Spike assimilated the name that sprung from when Katherine would sing of angels and Irish eyes stealing your heart away.

The lengthy sessions of hand grasping lent Spike time for long hours of contemplation over what he’d once considered his greatest plan. It was at this point in their relationship, the closer than best friends point, that Spike planned on gradually intensifying the innocent touches until they weren’t so innocent anymore. The weight of decisions not made hung from Spike’s neck. The sunken guilt soured any planned titillation of an angel.

His heart hurt at the implications of his underhanded intentions. To think he’d had the gumption at presuming Liam’s responses, violating his personality and their friendship for lust. Spike was thoroughly disgusted with himself. To think he could manipulate Angel’s libido, he could use someone so heartlessly, Spike hated that his past shaped him into a cruel persona. His sexual prowess was the only tool in his belt

But Angel, he had changed all that. He’d changed Spike. Angel was too pure to be sullied by Spike’s sultry intentions. Pale amongst the white hospital sheets, Angel was too chaste. And in any case, an attempt at seducing an angel was probably frowned on. Or at least, when the angel didn’t have use of his legs.

Spike’s sexual prowess, the asset he’d prided himself, was at the apex of his current stigma. The old Spike couldn’t very well seduce a man with said asset when the man couldn’t be aroused. The lack of Liam’s libido was inevitable when he had to pee through a tube. But Spike was no longer thinking with his sex. His heart kept to the beat of the monitor’s that surrounded Liam’s bed.

The only thing that would calm his heart was the grip of Angel’s hand engulfing his in repose.

It was that one liberty, that hand holding, which catalysed the fifth wrong in Spike’s planned seduction.

It was a Monday afternoon. The doctor had promised Liam a discharge by the end of the week. Spike’s eyes ignited at the news.

Spike didn’t realise he’d grabbed Liam’s hand until after Tony walked in. He had known it was almost time for Katherine to take over the night shift, but the news was so exciting that Spike lost his head.

His smile was beaming at Angel, excitedly word vomiting about all the activities they’d get up to when Liam was healed. Spike subconsciously grabbed Angel’s hand when Liam cackled in response to a joke about swine jelly wrestling.

The blue door opened with a snap. Liam’s father entered and all gaiety was sucked out of the atmosphere.

“What the fuck is this?”

Liam drew confusion across his brow in the seconds before Spike released his hand.

“Uhh, hi Mr Angelico—,”

“Get the fuck out of here, fag.”

“What? No, Dad!”

Liam tried to rise, but Spike gently pushed him back down to the bed.

“I’ll go, I’m sorry.”

Spike fled the room, leaning against the closed door in a silent solidarity as Tony stuck into his son.

“What do you think you’re doing, boy?” Spike hated to think Tony was looming above Angel, dispelling his happiness from just seconds ago.

“What? Why? He’s my friend!”

The wince was subconscious on Spike’s part.

“...Hand holding?” He missed the first part of the whispered sentence but the last two, shouted words were unmistakable. 

“He was just excited, is all.”

“I’m taking you home now. I better not hear that that queer has been in my home.”

Tony’s heavy footsteps approached the closed door, and Spike scrambled out of his path.

Three days later, Spike found Liam’s windows bolted closed.

He’d vainly attempted to use his switch knife to shimmy it open, but an open eyelid on the otherwise sleeping Liam pleaded with Spike to stop.

Spike slunk down, out of sight, in the DeSoto across the road until he saw Tony’s car turn into the street. His flask and the park were the only consoling arenas for Spike to patron.

The same afternoon, each member of the football team took Spike aside for a conversation with their fists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Gay slurs used in this chapter against the main characters by a minor character and implied gay bashing.


	5. Part Five

The whisper mill ran amok on the innocents of Sunnydale. It broke and tore down hearts that were once whole. It cracked steadfast beliefs of zealots and liberals in half. And Spike was at the centre, weeping for an Angel.

The sixth wrong was completely out of Spike’s hands and in the crafty hands of fate, which Spike disliked greatly as not even a superhero could outwit her. He’d hunt down the specific radioactive keg that would grant him the power to mind meld bigots in a heartbeat if that meant he got to be with Liam.

The town rumour mill had been tilling and Spike was apparently wanted for the murder of the drunk driver who ran the light that night. Which was bollocks, even the coppers who questioned him knew he was nothing but a washout.

Speaking of, he was drunk again. The teacher kept shooting Spike evil glances. Mrs Montgomery had obviously smelt his breath. Cheap whiskey was stinky whiskey. Classes were worse than tedium, they were scheduled torture.

Spike had grown to hate sitting in the back row. He could see his Angel’s lovely neck, all exposed as he hunched over his work. Spike diverted his eyes. He still had the bruises from the last time one of the jocks caught him staring.

They all blamed him, of course. When he first arrived in Sunnydale, his reputation was far from acceptable. And now the leader quarterback was on antidepressants ‘cause Spike made him gay. Or so said that evil gossip. 

He’d been shunned by teachers as soon as he was dragged back to school grounds and reprimanded for skipping school. The principal stood behind the desk, towered above Spike like a skyscraper in a ghost town. “You’ll go to class, boy,” he said. “And stay away from quarterbacks.”

When the town talked, it roared. He’d been turned away from the postal office for Christ’s sake. He had to explain to his mother that the postmaster didn’t want him near his daughter. It was almost as if Sunnydale had a town meeting to ordain a mass shun of Spike.

And Liam was quiet.

Spike would slouch past the cafeteria and see Angel silent amongst the rambunctious footballers. It was silent in the toilets, though his meals were like dirt in his mouth as he chewed behind the closed cubicle door. Mostly he just spat it out and turned to the sixth food group.

Beer was food, right?

His loneliness was oppressive, silent in its deadliness. A bullet to his heart. He stopped glancing into the cafeteria with the hope of linking eyes with Liam. He didn’t even deserve a blink, let alone a heartbeat of his attention.

So after making no attempt at communication for a week, the football rebounding against Spike’s window at three am came as a giant surprise.

“What the hell are you doing out of bed?” Spike hissed at his late night visitor. “You’re meant to be taking it easy.”

The smile Liam gifted Spike glistened in the light of the night. How did he keep his teeth so white?

“...and the doctor okayed it!”

“Huh?”

“Let me in, and I’ll say it again, loser.”

Spike’s feet whispered down the stairs, hand closing around the doorknob in no time.

The big lug was bouncing on the front step.

“Liam,” his voice soft like clothing coming out of a light wash. “Your pa will kill ya if he knows you’re here.”

“But he doesn’t!” Liam sounded entirely too confident. “He thinks I’ve got a girlfriend!”

Spike’s hand made a sound against his forehead that echoed across the night.

“Who’s the beard?”

“Willow!”

He’d get a bruise if his hand kept it up.

****

Willow’s arm was curled around Liam’s bicep when Spike peeked into the cafeteria. He tried not to be jealous. Fake girlfriend. Liam was willing to have a fake girlfriend just to be Spike’s friend. 

Unless she wasn’t fake.

Spike was trapped within a vicious circle of elation and desperation when his leg was grabbed beneath the stall.

“Oi!”

Pointy black hair looked up at him.

“Hey, bestie. How ya doing?”

Spike’s heart tried to cool down and let a scoff crawl up his throat.

“You sound like a bloody chit.”

Liam brushed off the insult and asked, “What ya doing in here?”

Spike held the tray of unidentifiable balls of meat. “Lunch.”

“But why in here? Come sit with me and Willow. She won’t sit at the jock table cause she said they’re all jerks.”

“No. Go back to your friends.”

“You’re my friend. Come eat with us.”

“No, Liam.”

“Please? I’ll hold your hand.” The tone was teasing but Spike’s last gasket was blown.

“Fucking hell Liam, you’re going to get me bashed.”

The silence hurt.

“Who?” His voice was choked with the fury lodged in his throat. If he didn’t hock a loogie, he’d get temper-induced tonsillitis.

“Who hurt you, William?”

“Christ, nobody. Don’t worry ya head.”

The lie sung in the air. Liam’s next words were barely whispered, Spike leaning against the barrier that sat innocently between them.

“Was it my Dad?”

Silence.

Spike couldn’t answer.

He had to. Had to deny it.

But his lips couldn’t move.

And just as he took a deep breath to deny it, a fist pounded the door.

“Hey, you done in there?”

Liam strode from the stall and answered, “Mom’s tuna bake, you know how it is. That one’s outta order,” before the sink water ran and then the bathroom door was slammed.

Spike hoped Liam really didn’t do anything stupid.


	6. Part 6

Liam’s life once revolved around football. His week would consist of two daily training sessions, pep rallies, and then Friday night’s big game. It was play or die, train or lose, run or fail. Any second he had spare, Liam would be thinking about football. Only so as not to curl up and cry in a fit of loneliness. Spike had changed that. He’d listened. 

The star quarterback who would once walk through the halls as if he were the only one there, the one who would get the freebies across town every good game he played, the one who would never hear a bad word said of his name. That facade was gone.

It was as if the word gay gave the world the right to pull him down to reality before slapping him across the face. The majority of the elderly shop keepers wouldn’t serve him if he was doing an errand for his Mom. His car was in disrepair because the mechanics stopped working on her when the news spread. He hadn’t been to church for weeks since the last incident.

But he didn’t care. Every single thing that had fell from his elevated shoulders, they didn’t matter. Because Spike was hurt. The only true friend Liam had for many years was broken by the guys he thought had had his back, from the man he thought would see him through life. Betrayed by the ones he had once relied upon all because of hearsay. 

Spike didn’t deserve that. Spike didn’t deserve the sickly yellow of the healing pools of blood beneath his skin. Scrimmages now paled in the face of Spike’s fading bruises, Liam’s anger still broiling over his best friend’s beating. But the town lived for football, and Liam was no longer adored.

It was always outside of the classroom, those brief moments when his prized feet flirted with the hallways lined with lockers. The remarks were like sniper’s bullets unerringly finding their mark in Liam’s heart. 

“Don’t go near the fag, Josie, it catches worse than swine flu.”

“Fucked Principal Snyder yet? Knew those good grades were BS.”

“Your slutty friend tried to hump me like a dog.”

Larry was a bastard.

“...I told him I don’t leftovers, let alone faggots.”

But despite Larry’s unpleasant disposition, Liam stood alone in Snyder’s office after he had to be dragged off Larry by a PE teacher.

“You know, Mr Angelico, once upon a time these parasites couldn’t touch you. Your untouchability chafed my regime. Your misbehaviour has never been tolerated and this incident warrants a week’s suspension. Your mother has been called. You are dismissed from training all week.”

There was a time when Synder’s disregard for his sportsmanship would have mattered to Liam. But his dismissal from the office and from the team was nothing. Not when he saw the look on Spike’s face when he walked out of that washroom and saw Larry’s words rip Liam asunder. 

The team would lose on Friday and the town would blame him. Football would continue to be worshipped.

So what he was currently doing was akin to treason. The lighter fluid covered the turf like a shadow of the clouds that lazily played across the field during the daylight hours. 

Quarterbacks did not set football fields on fire. 

He didn’t stick around to see his handiwork. The match was struck and Liam was gone.

Smoke billowed into the dark sky. The town could get fucked. 

****

It only occurred to Liam, after Willow had said her piece and remotely reengaged the school’s security system, that setting the football field on fire was possibly not a ‘bestest best friends forever’ gesture. 

Or in not-Willow words, he maybe felt something not unlike romantic notions towards his sweet and surly Spike-shaped best friend.

“You wanna have his baaaaaaaaaabies.” Liam just slurped his mocha, choosing to ignore Xander and hope Willow would provide further explanation.

The smell of coffee beans filled Liam’s nasal cavities, pleasant like the touch of comfort. He was surrounded by friends, genuine friends who worried and cared about his well being. Friends who would get the same reaction from the town if their secrets were found out.

To all intents and purposes, he looked like he was on a double date. But Willow’s hand secretly clasped Tara’s in the privacy of the Espresso Pump’s back booth.

“Xander, that’s almost,” Willow paused and considered her options. “Ninety-eight percent improbable.” 

That was not the explanation Liam was hoping for. “What? I can get pregnant?”

“If you are of the other three sexes, possibly.” Willow was incredibly smart and when he took her home to meet his parents, he discovered her incredible talent of lying. Mrs Angelico had given him a disheartened look, but his father had crowed once Willow had left. Liam listened as his father broke his heart, spewing words that didn’t fit with the view Liam once had of his wonderful and caring and Christian father. The only persons who truly cared for Liam were being loathingly belittled by the man who had once been his hero. 

“Jesus Christ, let the man have some ovaries.” Xander stated with a burp to accentuate the sentence.

“Xander!” Willow and Liam complained and Liam had slipped from his brood in time to see Xander and Willow exchange glances.

“Liam’s probably not a catcher,” Tara said. Liam blushed to his roots and fiddled with the empty mug.

The silence was comfortable across the table, local traffic filling in the pauses between breaths and chatter and kitchen clatter. 

“You have to let him know how you feel, honey,” Tara said softly.

“Yeah, or else he’ll keep trying hide from you because of your dad.” Xander could be astute at the all the wrong times. Liam didn’t need epiphanies, he needed a plan.

“He’s so stubborn he wouldn’t know I liked him if I told him to his face.” Liam sighed and sipped at the empty mug. A last, lone drop of liquid spilled onto his tongue. It was sweet, from the billion table spoons of sugar and chocolate syrup but the shot of espresso lingered on his tongue.

He’d just have to linger then.


	7. Part 7

Liam’s hand wandered down his body, limbs appearing in lethargic repose. But, really, the barb wire coil of want had unravelled and was ripping apart his insides with every thought of Spike.

The taut muscles of his toned thighs tingled. A willow branch walloped the glass, its shadows dancing across his bedroom walls like the night was fit for graceful revelry. 

His electrified skin sung. Water drops and window pane collided in the soft shush of oncoming night. His moan was swallowed by the humid room.

The journey of pleasure along the length of bare skin was barely slowed by the speed bump veins. Fingers tracing paint-by-number patterns of the most sensual Renaissance works, intricate yet mind-blowing when he enveloped the head. Fragile touch as delicate as cracked china wasn’t enough. It wasn’t like the rough scratch of bitten-off fingernails, painted over in black. It wasn’t the harsh sweep of petrol-laced voice, the boiling point hotter than Liam’s blood.

Yearning for simple pleasure wasn’t what created the hole in his heart. 

He hadn’t been thinking clearly when he sent the message. Spike turned him around. Made him start fires again, made him go into rages, made him pummel linebackers. Liam had enough of it, the drama and the problems and the burning in his chest. 

The burning only came when the time became unbearable between his sightings of Spike. 

So he sent the text, demanded Spike find his way into Liam’s bedroom. The clock hand’s march across the face moved at a snail’s pace each millisecond Spike wasn’t there. Liam’s hands would speed up every time he furtively turned his head to catch time passing.

“Spike,” Liam whimpered and his hand stripped his skin of fear. 

The promised pulse of pleasure shook his positioned parts, the anticipation of Spike a fire in his heart. 

“Yeah, come on.” His dick couldn’t take it anymore. When Spike crested the window sill, come came out of his cock accompanied by the concerto of the summer storm’s thunder and rain.

“Oh. God! Liam!” Spike spluttered, eyes trained on the hand that lazily pumped the last strands of come out of Liam’s spent dick. Liam looked up at Spike, brown eyes glossed over but the sheen of want hadn’t strayed from his gaze. 

“What are you doing?” Spike’s eyes would try and grasp the gleam of the cabinet of trophies, but, like a tractor beam, he was drawn back to Liam’s sated skin.

“Showing. Um.”

“Showing me what? Torture? You know what your Dad would do if he found me here!”

“But, I want you to. To be here. With me.” Liam’s words left no imagination, a blunt knife that stuck into Spike’s heart.

When their eyes caught, Liam was hopeful. Wishing. He couldn’t say the words, but maybe Spike would understand anyway.

But then Spike just left, disappearing out the window like the hail was his personal penance and the rain was a forebearer of his sin. 

**** 

They were suspicious of Spike. Liam could tell by the hunch of his shoulders and the dejection in his eyes. He wanted to yell down the school halls that he’d been the one to set alight the field. He was the one that hated the school enough to destroy the team’s chances. Taken the risks. But he didn’t. He just watched as Spike shrunk in on himself. Liam hated to think he had something to do with the set of his brow.

Almost as much as he hated himself for causing Spike to avoid him. 

Again.

Liam had tried. Phone calls, emails, stupid passed messages, fake PA calls, detention slips. Spike could barely bring his eyes to meet Liam’s, let alone talk. But there was a question posed in Spike’s eyes whenever they finally connected. His puzzled brow danced above his eyelashes, pondering Liam’s behaviour. But Liam didn’t tell, just watched and brooded as Spike slipped away, once again.

And then there was Veronica. It seemed he wasn’t the only one to be keeping a careful eye on Spike.

“Why the broody face?”

Liam looked up from his lunch. Cafeteria food was as appetising as his Bio homework. Veronica plunked her bag down and patted his hand awkwardly.

“I’m glad you’re okay. You know, from the accident and everything.”

His non-committal hum was as eloquent as he could muster.

“You’re gone, aren’t you?”

He didn’t need to answer her. Just follow her instructions to meet at the Espresso Pump after the last bell.

****  
“Bwahahahahahahahaha!”

Liam’s eyes dropped, puppy dog angst spelled out with the deep crease etched across his forehead.

“Oh, honey. I didn’t mean it like that.”

The Espresso Pump was teeming, the sweet and bitter smells warring in Liam’s nose as he tried to be composed. Veronica was making it very hard.

She sighed when his big old browns wouldn’t rise to meet her eyes. Veronica tucked a delicate finger beneath his chin. His gaze skittered around the room.

“Liam. Look at me. You have nothing to worry about. William is as subtle as monster trucks.”

“Wah?” Her smile was sad and understanding. It was old, like she’d smiled it many times before. He couldn’t comprehend why the turn of her lips was so devastating.

They sat in silence, sipping the bitter coffee that cooled like their tenuous connection.

“You’re going about this the wrong way.” Her words rolled his stomach.

The fire in his gut was horribly unpleasant, robbing Liam of his nerves. 

“That’s jealously.” Veronica was sage and good and perfect and...not what Spike wanted.

Everything was culminating in his body: the smack of pleasure, the ease of being, the hiss of jealousy. It all started and ended with Spike.

“Babe, that plan? He’ll be thinking you just want to please him, and that it’s all about sex. You have to make him know you mean it.”

“I can do that.”

“Yeah? How? Don’t say flowers.” His laughter bubbled out of the chasm Spike’s rejection had burrowed in his chest.

“I could use a little help.” Veronica melted.

“You let me have a little chat with him and we’ll see what we can do.”

Her vowels were like diamonds, consonants the reflection of the sparkle of hope in Liam’s eyes. 

“How?”

Veronica’s smile was heartbreaking but he walked away, pleased she was going to smack some sense into Spike. Just sense, though. Nothing else. Nope.


End file.
